True meaning of Christmas revealed in the birth of Jesus Christ

Billy Edwards

10:52 PM, Dec 9, 2011

It is always a busy time of the year as we prepare for Christmas. There is constantly something to do as we get ready for the season of celebration and festivities. But in the midst of the hustle and bustle we tend to forget the true reason for the season — the birth of the Savior.

What makes the birth of Jesus Christ so special is that it was a divine act of God. His birth was unlike any other birth in the history of all mankind.

It was the grandest expression of God's love, grace and mercy upon the human race since the beginning of time. God could have turned His back on fallen man and said that it was not worth the sacrifice of His beloved Son, but He didn't. He chose to send Jesus Christ into the world as a ransom for our sins.

Another reason that the birth of Christ is special is because it had been foretold centuries earlier by the prophet. Isaiah wrote these words some 700 years before His birth: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign, Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (Isa. 7:14).

Someone might ask, "Do you believe all that about the virgin birth?" Yes, I do. I do because I believe in a God of impossibilities!

God is not bound by the laws of nature as we humans are. If God says something is going to happen, even if it is contrary to the laws of science and nature, you had better believe that it's going to occur.

The Bible says that His name shall be called Immanuel. Every aspect of His life was foretold years before it actually took place. Nothing happened by coincidence or surprise. Even His name was foretold years before His birth. This prophecy was fulfilled in Matthew 1:23 where it says, " they called his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is God with us."

The only other perspective from which one can view the birth of Jesus is to come out and flatly deny that it ever took place. The only way they can say that it did not happen is to simply refuse to believe, and there are plenty of those people in the world.

Who was this Jesus? To understand who He was and His mission in this world, we can go back to see what Isaiah called him.

The Prophet Isaiah said, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be on His shoulder: and his name shall be call Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9:6).

There was just one person born who could fulfill this prophesy, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ. It was about Jesus whom the Prophet Isaiah wrote these words. There was no other Savior of man that lived before or since to whom these words can refer.

He is Wonderful for the simple reason that no one else is like Him. He is beyond description in every way. He is great. There are no words in human language that can adequately describe all He is.

We as human beings have no way to process information other than in our own terms, but the Lord is so much more. We cannot even begin to grasp all that He is. This is the reason the prophet had to settle on the word Wonderful as one of His attributes.

Notice, too, the capitalizations in this verse. The writer saw fit in writing these words to capitalized them. This is no accident. The words Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God The everlasting Father, and The Prince of Peace are all in capital letters because they refer to divinity.

Isaiah said that He is called Counselor. Why is this? I believe He is called Counselor because of the fact that He, and He alone, has the answers to all our problems. We cannot have a problem that He cannot solve. He is our Counselor in every aspect of life.

Isaiah says He is a mighty God. John tells us, "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).

People sometimes ask the question, "How can this be? How can God become man?" There is a simple explanation to this and it is this: He was God!

God created all of the laws of nations, by which we must live and operate. Given this, He is the Supreme Creator of everything, He can defy all those laws at any time for His own will and purposes.

He is the everlasting Father. This simply refers to the fact that He had no beginning and will have no end. This is particularly difficult for us to understand because we see everything in terms of a beginning, an ending and all in between.

But He is eternal. In Revelation He said, "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last" (Rev. 1:11).

He is the Prince of Peace. If there is one thing that our world needs today it is peace. We need peace with ourselves and with others, and we can have it through the Lord Jesus Christ.

When we make peace with Him, that will affect everything else in our lives. When we make peace with God, it will spill over into everything else."

Make peace with Him right now. He wants to give you His peace, which the Bible says "passes all understanding," but we must do business with Him first. Do it now and discover the true meaning of Christmas.